The Only Safe Place Before God • 1 Samuel 5-6

37:44 Teaching begins

Notes

What if some stranger were to come up to you and stick his hand in your pocket? Or kick dirt on you? Or spit in your face?

You would be offended that that person violated your personal space.

Imagine violating God’s personal space. The offense is multiplied by infinity.

The five lords of the Philistines are about to offend God greatly. But God’s own people are going to act as clueless as the Philistines. In fact, everyone is clueless when it comes to offending God. Treating Him as common and profane is not a good idea.

Everyone needs to know the only safe place before God.

I’m reading in 1 Samuel 5.

1. The Philistines take the ark of God as a trophy of victory, vv. 1-2

A. The Philistines feel justified in doing this. As far as they know, their god Dagon have them the victory over the Israelite God.

B. So they place the ark of God by Dagon in the temple of Dagon. It’s a reminder that the presence of God is not much of a presence and that our god Dagon is stronger and better.

2. In so doing the Philistines sin against the holiness of God, and God responds, vv. 3-5.

A. I mention holiness because this is the big issue. The Israelites are going to ask, “Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God?” The Philistines are sinning against God’s holiness.

B. Holiness is pretty abstract for us to imagine sinning against, but let’s start with the concept of personal space.

1. Personal space is a distance at which one person feels comfortable talking to another. That varies from person to person, and it’s subjective. It’s what a person feels comfortable with.

2. You do not violate personal space. You don’t get too close, you don’t physically touch someone, you sure don’t take liberties like stick your thumb in someone’s eye. You don’t spit on them. These are all offensive and violating.

3. The higher a person is, the greater the respect concerning that personal space. That is appropriate. Let’s say I am introduced to the Queen of England, and I put my arm around her and say, “Heyyyy! I’m so glad to meet you!” That would be insulting, highly inappropriate, and violating the Queen’s dignity and person. I would be put on the floor immediately. You must show the proper respect to the royal personal space.

C. Now, take that personal space and turn it up to infinity and you begin to understand holiness.

1. Because God is unlike His creation. He alone is eternal, self-existent. He alone is responsible for every other existing thing, whether angels, galaxies, planets, every living thing. He is special to the nth degree, there is no other God. He is above all, beyond all.

2. That respect and courtesy becomes fear, because that is the utmost respect that is called for. The proper way to deal with the holy God is utmost respect and fear.

D. The Philistines have offended because they have put the ark of God alongside their god. But there can be no other god besides the Lord. That is profaning the Lord’s holiness, making Him one of a group of gods, and not special in any way.

E. God responds by profaning Dagon.

1. Early the next morning the people arise to find Dagon fallen from his base, on his face before the ark of the Lord. Was that a freak accident, a coincidence? Oh well, put Dagon back on his base.

2. Next morning Dagon has fallen over again, and this time his hands and his head are on the threshold. The threshold is common and profane, like a welcome mat. If you’ve ever beat out a welcome mat you know that you can’t clean them. There’s always dirt and more dirt. Thresholds are stepped on by everyone and they are dirty, not special. God is profaning Dagon’s head and his hands—he is profane, not holy. He is worthless and contemptible.

F. The Philistines are so lost that they miss the point and call the threshold holy because Dagon touched it. So they do not violate the holy threshold.

3. But God continues to hold all the Philistines guilty and He judges them accordingly, vv. 6-12.

A. As we find out in the next chapter God multiplies rats. The rats bring with them some disease resembling bubonic plague. People develop swellings, tumors, and die in large numbers.

B. Is this God or a coincidence? They test it out by sending the ark of God to Gath, another of the five cities of the Philistines.

1. This is a pagan idea, that gods are limited in their sphere of influence. That’s why Balak of Moab had Balaam curse Israel from different locations. Maybe he would find a place where God wasn’t so powerful and the curse would work. Here they hope that another place will render the ark ineffective and stop the plague.

2. But it doesn’t work. Gath breaks out in plague and very great destruction. Normal life is swallowed in death and confusion.

3. They send it to Ekron, and it does the same thing. And people are starting to get the idea: did you send us that thing to kill us all? Send it away!

C. In verse 12 you have the cry of the city going up to heaven. Desperate prayer to whomever is up there: please don’t kill me. Please have mercy on me. Please don’t be angry. Please, please. That’s how you come to God, with utmost humility and fear. You are powerless before God and if He wanted to destroy you there’s not a blessed thing you could do. Your only hope is to give God utmost respect and humility and beg for mercy.

4. The Philistines surrender to God and give the ark back in proper respect, vv. 1-18.

A. It’s been seven months of pandemic and death. The lords of the Philistines confer with their priests and diviners, how do we send this back? How do we get out of this?

B. Do not send it back empty. You need to send a trespass offering.

1. Admit your guilt before God. You have offended God and violated His holiness. You have profaned and blasphemed Him. You can’t send it back like nothing happened. That’s greater profanity!

2. So make golden representations of the rats and the tumors. These rats came from You. You caused us to have tumors. You did this; we acknowledge the righteousness of Your judgment. We are wrong; You are right.

3. That’s giving God glory. Whenever there is a conflict between you and Him, He is always right, you are always wrong. You are always the one out of line, you are the one who profanes His holiness. Give Him glory. He is holy, always right.

4. Maybe He will lighten His hand and ease up on you, your gods, and your land. You can’t dictate to God. You exist at His sufferance. If He is not entreated there is no one who can save you from His wrath. Maybe, perhaps. You need mercy.

5. Whatever you do, don’t harden your hearts like the Egyptians did. He crushed the nation with plagues and they had to let Israel go.

C. But they also want to make sure this was the Lord and not an extraordinary coincidence. Because none of this was clearly labeled “The Hand of God.” Were they just being superstitious pre-scientific fools who believe anything? You can bet they didn’t believe in Dagon. But he is useful to control the masses. But is this the real thing?

D. So here’s the test.

1. Hitch up two milk cows who have never been hitched up before to a new cart. Take the calves away from them. Put the ark and the box with the offerings on the cart and see what they do.

2. The milk cows are only interested in feeding their calves or at the very least being milked. They don’t know how to pull a cart, they have no idea where to go. No one is driving them. If they go straight to Israeli territory, Beth Shemesh, then God really caused all this death and destruction. If not, it’s all chance, a coincidence.

E. The cows go straight for Beth Shemesh on the highway. The lords of the Philistines themselves follow behind to see what happens. They are eyewitnesses of cows doing something unnatural. They are mooing all the way. “I gotta get milked, this is killing me and I can’t stop. This is crazy, I don’t even know where I’m going, how am I doing this? Somebody help me, this is not normal.”

5. The big shock is that Israel is just as clueless as the Philistines, vv. 19-21, 7:1-2.

A. The Israelites are glad to see the ark. They sacrifice the cows to the Lord, so far so good.

B. But then they take unbelievable liberties with the ark of God: they look inside it. They profane the holiness of God just like the Philistines. It says in the law of Moses no one is to even look at the ark, much less look into it. The Philistines didn’t know better, but Israel knew better.

C. The number 50,000 and 70 men is written in an odd way, there probably weren’t that many people in that village. A very literal version has 70 men in total and 50 of them chief men. But we do know God struck the people with great slaughter for their violating His holiness.

D. The men of Beth Shemesh ask a very pertinent question: who is able to stand before this holy Lord God? And they get rid of the ark with the men of Kiriath Jearim, and it stays there for 20 years.

6. So what?

A. Everyone has to deal with God’s holiness.

1. Israel had to, but so did the Philistines and they weren’t God’s people.

2. God is not a local god with a limited jurisdiction. His holiness, His divine personal space, is bigger than the universe. No one can avoid dealing with God’s holiness.

3. And everyone has profaned God’s holiness. There is not one person who hasn’t violated God’s holiness, profaned Him.

B. So that makes it a pertinent question: who is able to stand before this holy Lord God? Even more pertinent is the command for God’s own people: you shall be holy, for I am holy. Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God?

C. We have some direction in our scriptures this morning.

1. Do not put any other gods next to the Lord Jesus. By that, I mean, does any other pursuit swerve you from obeying the Lord Jesus? You can work a job, raise a family, be a person, and do all to the glory of God. But is there anything that you can’t do in the presence of the Lord Jesus? Anything that keeps you from obeying Him? Then you put another god next to Jesus like the Philistines did, and you violate His holiness. God says you shall have no other gods besides Me. That’s holiness.

2. Acknowledge your guilt. Don’t avoid it, like holding on to the ark for seven months or sending back the ark empty, deal with your guilt head on. Say to Him, “This is what I have done against You.”

3. Then you offer a guilt offering, the only one that God accepts. You trust in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, dying on the cross in your place. He is your only guilt offering that is acceptable to God. Trusting in Jesus makes you holy.

4. Humble yourself and cry out to heaven like the Philistines did. This is the proper respect and fear before the Lord. This is how you approach God. James 4:6-10 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.” Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

5. Don’t try to get away from humility before God. You think that’s somehow not honouring to God to be mindful of your sins, but it’s when we forget our sins that we become arrogant and profane the Lord. When we approach God in a low position, then He lifts us up. Humility is the only safe place to be before God.

6. God will bring you closer to Him, into His personal space, with the intimacy of a father. Humility brings you into God’s holiness.

Let’s pray.